Gene Wilder

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This week for Movie Monday I’m back with another of my favorites. It’s The Producers!

Plot Synopsis:The once-great Max Bialystock had once been the toast of Broadway, but now he has been reduced to a washed-up, aging, fraudulent, corruptible, and greedy Broadway producer who barely ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence romancing lascivious, wealthy elderly women (“angels” in theatrical terms) in exchange for money for his next play. Accountant Leopold “Leo” Bloom, a young man who is highly nervous and prone to hysterics, arrives at Max’s office to do his books and discovers a $2,000 discrepancy in the accounts of Max’s last play. Max persuades Leo to hide the relatively minor fraud, and while shuffling numbers, Leo has a revelation: a producer could make a lot more money with a flop than a hit by overselling shares in the production, because no one will audit the books of a play presumed to have lost money….

Plot: This is a freaking hilarious movie, and frankly one of Mel Brooks, because of course it’s from his genius mind, best productions. In fact it was so successful that Brooks actually went to Broadway with it and was a huge success. There is a remake, and while it’s good, it’s not the one I’m covering today. This is full of laughs, fun times, and more laughter. My favorite part might just be the opening of the play. You’ll see why when you watch it if you haven’t seen this already. If you have, you know what I’m talking about. “Winter for Poland and France”

Characters: All of the cast is awesome, but the fact that Gene Wilder is in it is just icing on the cake. However my favorite character has to be Lorenzo St. DuBois.

Cinematography: There isn’t any really fancy with this, mostly because it doesn’t need it. That being said it was still fun.

Music: Perfect. In fact I think I’ll go listen to that opening song of the play after I finish writing this post.

Overall: If you’ve never seen this movie, or the remake, you absolutely need to do so.

This week for Movie Monday I’m covering another work from my favorite director. It’s Young Frankenstein!

Plot Synopsis: Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is a lecturing physician at an American medical school and engaged to the tightly wound socialite Elizabeth. He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather Victor Frankenstein, the infamous mad scientist; to dissociate himself from his forebear, Frederick insists that his surname is pronounced ‘Fronkensteen’. When a solicitor informs him that he has inherited his family’s estate in Transylvania after the death of his great-grandfather, the Baron Beaufort von Frankenstein, Frederick travels to Europe to inspect the property.

Plot: The plot is pretty good, although if you are expecting anything really serious you’re going to be sorely disappointed. That said there is some some adult themes in this, so children probably shouldn’t watch this.

Characters: The entire cast is amazing, though Gene Wilder as Frederick really steals the show in my opinion. That being said Igor is also pretty freaking hilarious. “Didn’t you used to have that on the other side?”.

Cinematography: This is done in black and white as a nod to the old Frankenstein films, which Young Frankenstein takes many inspirations from.

Music: The music is, as one might expect from a Mel Brooks film, spot on. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.

Plot Synopsis: In a small town, children visit a candy shop. Charlie Bucket, a poor paperboy, stares through the window as the shop owner sings “The Candy Man”. Walking home, he passes Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. A mysterious tinker tells Charlie, “Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out.” Charlie rushes home to his widowed mother and bedridden grandparents. After telling Grandpa Joe about the tinker, Joe reveals that Wonka locked the factory because other candy makers, including rival Mr. Slugworth, sent in spies to steal his recipes. Wonka disappeared, but after three years resumed selling candy; the origin of Wonka’s labor force is unknown. The next day, Wonka announces that he hid five “Golden Tickets” in chocolate Wonka Bars. Finders of the tickets will receive a factory tour and a lifetime supply of chocolate…

Plot: The plot is good, although it does stray a bit from the original source material, the book by Roald Dahl. Fun fact for those unaware, Dahl disowned the film after having disputes with the directors. I never knew that until I read it while getting information for writing this post. That being said this is most definitely a movie meant for children, so don’t expect thrilling action sequences. Another fun fact, the source material and the remake of this movie are both titled “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” instead of what this film is titled.

Characters: The characters are all good, and while some are annoying it’s intentional. Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka is excellent and fits the character incredibly well. The rest of the cast is good as well.

Cinematography: Good, although with today’s special effects it does look more than a bit cheesy now.

Music: Being a musical there is plenty of music in this film, and most of it is pretty memorable, if a bit campy.

Overall: If you’ve never watched it, you probably should as it’s regarded as one of the films anyone should watch. It’s even preserved in the Library of Congress, which is highly picky of what gets put in there.

For those who like: Musicals, Fantasy, Children Movies, Good Plot, Excellent Cast.

Plot Synopsis: In the American frontier of 1874, construction on a new railroad will soon be going through Rock Ridge, a town inhabited exclusively by white people with the surname Johnson. The conniving attorney general Hedley Lamarr wants to force Rock Ridge’s residents to abandon their town, thereby lowering land prices. After he sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to shoot the sheriff and trash the town, the townspeople demand that Governor William J. Le Petomane appoint a new sheriff to protect them. Lamarr persuades the dim-witted Le Petomane to appoint Bart, a black railroad worker who was about to be executed for starting a fight. A black sheriff, he reasons, will offend the townspeople, create chaos, and leave the town at his mercy.

Plot: First let me get this out of the way, this is purely a satire. I do not condone the usage of slurs or racial epithets. However the usage here in the film is to point out the obvious bigotry in the usage of such things. Okay with that out of the way, Blazing Saddles is absolutely not for children. However my Dad, who I love dearly and respect immensely, showed it to me when I was 8, so this film had a lot of influence on me growing up. If you ever thought I had a twisted sense humor, or my sense of morality was more than a bit askew, this film might be part of the reason. I always will love Mel Brooks films, because they are almost all funny with few, if any, really sad endings. Blazing Saddles is my favorite of the bunch and I love this film for it’s usage of comedy to show that bigotry is stupid.

Characters: The entire cast is just a mish-mash of comedy and side stitch inducing laughter. However my favorite might just be Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. Or I just might like him as an actor the most. Either way I enjoyed the entire cast, even if we were obviously meant to hate certain characters, they were done in such a way that I really didn’t hate them too much.

Cinematography: This isn’t a Lucasfilm production, in fact the stage props are so blatant sometimes it’s hilarious. Okay you can stop pulling out pitchforks to gut me with, I couldn’t resist doing that.

Overall: If you’ve never watched Blazing Saddles, you need to stop whatever you’re doing (assuming your not at work or something like that) and go watch it right now. Like seriously, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

For those who like: Comedy, Great Plot, Laughing, Amazing Cast of Characters, Their sides aching from laughing so much, Excellent Cinematography, Not being able to breathe from lack of oxygen due to laughing so hard. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but how can you hate all of that?

This week for Sensate Saturday I’m looking back at the hellish year that was 2016. It’s for all In Memoriam 2016.

Gene Wilder: I loved, and still do, watching your various works from Willy Wonka to Blazing Saddles. You were an acting giant, and you won’t be replaced in my heart ever.

Kenny Baker: You were R2-D2 and I grew up learning to understand the series of whistles and beeps that the character you portrayed used to communicate.

Mohamed Ali: I’ve always thought that you were a pretty cool guy, and growing up when I thought of boxing it was always connected to you immediately. I promise to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, just like you said to do. Even if it’ll just be only with that single quote, you taught me that power isn’t everything.

Carrie Fisher: I knew you best as Princess Leia, and losing you this year really sucked. May the Force be with you, hopefully in a better place than you left.

Alan Rickman: I knew you best as Professor Snape, and I hated your guts for most of my childhood. Your work was great, and you will be missed.

Prince: I don’t tend to enjoy music made in English, but regardless you left a huge impact on the industry and your loss will be our loss forever. Thank you for your work.

Arnold Palmer: You were my Grandfather’s favorite golfer, and he taught me how to play because of how much he admired you. I’ll always cherish those memories and you will be missed by me because of my Grandfather’s love for the sport you were a giant in.

The rest: We lost way too many people this year, and even more people who didn’t deserve the spotlight this year gained more time on the Television than all of you should have gotten. A certain orange treasonous snake tops that list in my books.

I might not have named certain people, but 2016 really sucked. We lost too many people, young and old, too soon for many of them. The world will miss you.

That’s it for this week’s Sensate Saturday and since I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve I pray that there won’t be any people who die in the next 12 hours before this hellish year ends.